I've been covering the video game space for 20 years for outlets like The Washington Post, Reuters, CNET, AOL, Wired Magazine, Yahoo!, Entertainment Weekly, NBC, Variety, Maxim, EGM, and ESPN. I serve as EIC of GamerHub.tv and co-founder of GamerHub Content Network, a video game and technology video syndication network that works with Tribune and DBG to syndicate game videos and editorial around the world. I also cover games for outlets like The Hollywood Reporter, IGN, Geek Monthly, CNN, DigitalTrends and PrimaGames.

CCP Games is doing a lot of smart things. After focusing on growing a robust and dedicated hardcore PC gaming audience with its EVE Online game over the past 10 years, the Iceland-based publisher is expanding the EVE Universe.

First up is DUST 514, a free-to-play Sony PlayStation 3 space shooter that launches on May 14 (5/14, get it?). The shooter bypasses the intricacies of EVE’s virtual economy and politics (the online game is so complex CCP has its own Chief Economist to oversee the game world), and offers an action-packed entryway into the game. It also opens up console gamers to this very robust online space universe. The free-to-play gaming model is huge on PCs and Sony has embraced it online with Sony Online Entertainment (SOE’s) DC Universe game and now DUST 514.

CCP Games also has seen the growth in tablet and smartphone gaming, so it’s expanding EVE to those platforms as well. The game developer is working with NVIDIA to enable gamers with Tegra-powered devices to connect with the online universe while away from their PCs and laptops. Halldor Fannar, chief technology officer of CCP Games, said mobile devices allow players to perform market transactions, manage their skill queue and even fit their spaceship so that things are ready when they enter the game universe.

What I’m most excited about when it comes to EVE (and I have to admit I don’t play the PC game, which is very complex) is the virtual reality dogfighting game. CCP Games had Oculus Rift running the EVR game at its recent Fanfest event in Reykjavik, Iceland. The game allows up to six players per team to engage in full VR space combat running on the world’s first affordable gaming VR system. You can check out the game in the video below, but from people who have played it, you need to experience this in 3D with head tracking. Unfortunately, this game was just a test demo, but with Oculus Rift coming soon, I’d bet some variation of this game will be available for the device.

“CCP was one of our earliest and biggest backers on Kickstarter back in August,” said Nate Mitchell, co-founder and vice president of Oculus VR. “They got an early dev kit as one of our biggest backers and as soon as they got the kit they wrote to us and had the idea for EVR. We did the Kickstarter to get great developers and game designers like CCP involved in the process to give us feedback on the hardware and the software. They’ve been sending us plenty of feedback on ideas and suggestions, bug fixes. We’ve been working with them on gameplay suggestions in terms of best practices for VR games and EVR is the first really major VR game where they took an idea and built it from the ground up for virtual reality and it just really plays really nicely in the Oculus Rift.”

If you haven’t played EVE Online, even Defiance actor Grant Bowler told me it’s not an easy game to get into. It has a steep learning curve, possibly one of the steepest of any online game. But once PC gamers enter this world, they don’t want to leave. Bowler would spend a lot of time in EVE Online, so much so he had to stop playing.

The EVE gamer is dedicated. They’ve spent 10 years playing and advancing this online virtual world. Over 400,000 players are active, which is small compared to Blizzard Entertainment’s 10 million-plus World of Warcraft subscribers, but they spend a lot of time and money in this world and have allowed CCP Games to expand to new offerings. The dedication of this group shows at EVE Fanfest every year, where over 2,000 fans trek to Iceland to talk to the developers, find out what’s new and get hands-on with games. They also get to party at the top of the world; this year with Z-Trip.

These new game entries into the EVE universe have great potential for people like me, who just don’t have the time or patience to get past the PC game’s learning curve. It also gives CCP Games a huge marketing partner in Sony, which is promoting the PlayStation 3-exclusive DUST 514 globally. I’ll definitely engage in battle on PS3 and (when available) dogfight on Oculus Rift with EVR. And that’s smart thinking from CCP Games.

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Oculus Rift is going to be huge – they’ve really captured the imagination of gamers with their bold new product. It’s a shame that Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft didn’t try their hand at coming out with such a device, given their deep R&D pockets and their expertise in product design. I’m pretty sure that they’ll eventually come around to introducing similar products of their own, and probably with more refined features, but it’s a shame that they’ll be laggards instead of leaders as they have been in the past.

Immersive Virtual Reality will be a real shot in the arm for the gaming industry, and FPS gaming in particular. While adaptations of existing titles are already being posted on Youtube to wide applause, what I really can’t wait for are titles which will be explicitly written to make best use of the Oculus Rift’s immersion capabilities.

Likewise, Sony has already come out with the HMZ-T1 and HMZ-T2 wearable video headsets. People who have tried them have commented at how heavy the Sony product is to wear, and how much lighter the Oculus Rift is by comparison. Comfort matters, especially if you’re going to be wearing this thing for hours at a time while immersed in a VR game or watching a movie.